Dotson v. Edmonson

On
January 3, 2018, Plaintiff Lyle Dotson filed a motion in
limine to challenge the confidentiality of documents produced
by the Louisiana State Police (“LSP”) under the
terms of the protective order entered in this
case.[1] Plaintiff “challenges the
designation of these documents as including
‘Confidential Information under the Protective Order
and requests that the Court remove them from the terms of the
Protective Order, so they may be used as exhibits” at
trial.”[2] Plaintiff seeks to introduce at trial the
complete LSP Policies and Procedures Manual, [3] as well as the
following individual policies from the LSP Policies and
Procedures Manual: (1) the Use of Force policy;[4] (2) the
Bias-Based Profiling policy;[5](3) the Arrests and Searches
policy;[6] (4) the Code of Conduct and
Ethics;[7] (5) the Criminal Patrols
policy;[8] (6) the Enforcement Policy;[9] and (7) the
Pursuit / Roadblock policy.[10] As Plaintiff explains in his
response to Defendants' objections to Plaintiff's
proposed trial exhibits, the LSP policy manual is “an
essential means of proving Plaintiff's claim against
Defendant Edmonson for the promulgation of unconstitutional
policies or the failure to promulgate
policies.”[11] Plaintiff does not, however, argue that
the LSP policies are relevant with regard to the claims
against the individual troopers.

Plaintiff
also seeks to introduce the LSP arrest records from the
French Quarter during the period September 28, 2015 - October
18, 2015.[12]

Defendants
Calvin Anderson, Rene Bodet, Michael Edmonson, Tagee Journee,
and Huey McCartney filed a response to the
motion.[13] Defendants state they do not object to
these exhibits on confidentiality grounds, but they do object
to the exhibits as irrelevant, for the reasons stated in
their motion in limine and objections to trial
exhibits.[14]Defendants also object to the motion to
the extent Plaintiff seeks to disclose the documents outside
of trial.[15]

The
Court has separately addressed Defendants' objections to
Plaintiff's proposed trial exhibits 57, 58, 59, 60, and
61, and has ruled that the exhibits are inadmissible on
relevance grounds.[16] This motion is therefore moot with
respect to these exhibits.

With
regard to the remaining exhibits, the Court finds that
exhibits 12, 13, and 14 are irrelevant to the present matter.
Exhibit 12, the LSP policy on Biased-Based Profiling, sets
administrative guidelines on the training, reporting, and
investigation of police actions that relies on race,
ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin.
Exhibit 13, the LSP policy on arrests and searches, states
the LSP procedures for arrest, use of handcuffs during
arrest, and searches. Exhibit 14 is the LSP Code of Conduct
and Ethics. Although Exhibits 12 and 13 set internal
standards that govern the Defendants' alleged conduct,
the Court finds that police policies may not be entered into
evidence in order to establish a constitutional standard or
prove a constitutional violation against an individual
officer.[17] As the Tenth Circuit has noted,
“[t]hat an arrest violated police department procedures
does not make it more or less likely that the arrest
implicates the Fourth Amendment, and evidence of the
violation is therefore irrelevant.”[18] In other
words, although the LSP policies may give state police
officers “a framework to evaluate officer conduct and
job performance, ” the policies “shed[] no light
on what may or may not be considered ‘objectively
reasonable' under the Fourth Amendment given the infinite
set of disparate circumstances which officers might
encounter.”[19] The LSP policies at issue Exhibits 12,
13, and 14 are therefore inadmissible because they lack
relevance. This motion is also moot with respect to these
exhibits.

The
Court also finds that Exhibit 34, except as to pages
LSPProd00191 -LSPProd00195, is irrelevant. The motion is
GRANTED with respect to pages LSPProd00191 -
LSPProd00195 of Exhibit 34. The motion is moot with respect
to the remainder of the exhibit.

With
respect to the broader public disclosure of documents
currently under protective order outside the confines of this
case, the Court will provide an opportunity for the parties
and the Louisiana State Police to brief this issue after the
trial concludes.

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